'Grief, however, with some species is certainly exhibited by weeping. A woman, who sold a monkey to the Zoological Society, believed to have come from Borneo (Macacus maurus or M. inornatus of Gray), said that it often cried; and Mr. Bartlett, as well as the keeper Mr. Sutton, have repeatedly seen it, when grieved, or even when much pitied, weeping so copiously that the tears rolled down its cheeks.'  Charles Darwin

 

Jane Goodall talks of a chimp called Flint and how he struggled to come to terms with the death of his mother, Flo.  'Over the next three weeks, Flint became increasingly lethargic.  He stopped eating, and he avoided other chimps, huddling in the vegetation close to where he'd last seen Flo.  His eyes sank deep into the hollow sockets of his skull; his movements were like an old man's.  The last short journey he made, with many pauses, was to the very place where Flo's body had lain.  There he remained, sometimes staring and staring into the water, until he died, just three and a half weeks after losing Flo.  He died of grief.'

Francoise Wemelsfelder, who studied at the Scottish Agricultural College in Edinburgh, wrote of one pig she saw at a farm, 'I gained a clear impression of this young female pig that had been housed alone for many months in a small barren pen.  She was sitting on the floor, her hind legs stretched underneath her, her back hunched, her head and ears drooping, and her tongue occassionally hanging out of her mouth...When I sat down next to her and carefully touched her, she glanced at me but didn't move.  As the moments passed, I was struck by the soft, gentle helplessness quality of her passivity, the total abscence of hostility, fear, or any other active response.  She was present only vaguely, her apathy such a stark contrast to what pigs normally are like.'

Care For The Wild, a sanctuary in Africa that takes care of orphaned elephants and rhinos, deals with the grief of the baby elephants everytime a new one comes in.  They wrote this of one orphan; Segera, who came into their care, 'He never got over losing his mother. He never really showed any signs of happiness, but he was improving and had started to go out with the others...Then he became listless and as the morning progressed his dung turned an ever-darker red.  We called Dieter who gave him several injections, but he died at 9.30pm that night from internal haemoraging, the cause of which was not apparent.  Perhaps the loss of his mother was too much for his heart to bear.'  Mother and baby elephants and rhinos form incredibly strong bonds.  If a mother elephant is shot, her baby usually doesn't leave the body and finally dies from starvation.  One rhino baby taken in by Care For The Wild refused to leave her mother's body, even when attacked by hyenas.

Manatees, a close relation of the elephant, also form strong bonds between mother and calf.  Manatees are also known as 'Lamatins' , named so by Captain S.M. Scannon after he saw how lamented a mother was after seeing her baby killed.  In 1632, Friar De Lisboa, wrote in his book, 'History of Animals and Trees of Maranhoa'  of an encounter he had with some manatees, 'And I want to tell you what I saw happen to this fish: I saw a female get killed and skinned, and they threw the skin on the ground at the edge of the water.  And the next day, going to get water, they found the offspring stretched out over the skin and they took it.'  Maybe manatees have the same loyalty to loved ones, even when they've passed on, as elephants and rhinos.